Pro Quality

3 Must-Know Tips For Producing Pro Quality Audio On a PC Recording Studio

Ah, the humble computer recording studio for home recording. tons of folks have one, yet so few use it to its full power. Have you ever noticed that sometimes, a really professional-looking website with cool graphics and slick videos, will have a voiceover that sounds crappy?

I think it has something to do with myths that still linger in the zeitgeist from the old days, when audio recording was the realm of tech geeks who did electrical engineering projects for fun. The gear needed to do professional recording was expensive and bulky. Most recording engineers couldn't even afford their own gear. They usually worked for studios with their own budgets (universities, record companies, etc.).

But that has changed drastically in the past 10 or 15 years. With computers capble of so much, and digital recording (that's as opposed to the tape recording needed in the past) being the norm, literally anyone with a computer can create excellent quality audio without having to spend much more than $25 or so on a moderate USB mic. So why is there still so much crappy audio out there?

Okay, I suppose we should have a definition of crappy where audio is concerned. Here's my definition: audio that sounds thin, echo-y & "far-away" sounding, noisy, hard-to understand, full of p-pops and other bass-y bumps and bruises  when the speaker/singer says certain kinds of words, or any combination of the above." Some may quibble with that definition, but I find it to be quite descriptive of common audio problems.

So that means that, by contrast, good quality audio should be full, clear & "up-front," clean (free of any sound except the stuff you want to hear), easy to understand, and free of audio glitches like plosives or hissing, and overall natural-sounding.

Some of the above requirements for good quality audio are not easy to obtain without fairly good gear, hense would be hard to do with that $25  set-up I mentioned. But some of the most important factors, like reducing/eliminating the "echo-y & far away" thing, ARE do-able even on the low-cost pc recording studio. Here are three tips that will drastically improve your audio regardless of how cheap your set-up.

Get Close to the Mic

Generally speaking, your mouth (assuming voice recording) should be quite close to the microphone so that you get the best and clearest sound. Around 6 to 18 inches away is about right. If you are recording a video, and the sound source is 10 feet away from the microphone on the camera, the result will be what I call echo-y & far away sounding. The reason is that the voice has such a long distance to travel that by the time the actual sound from your mouth reaches the microphone, it has also bounced off of every wall, ceiling, floor, table, etc. in the room and created copies of itself. Those copies are getting into the microphone too. Try to imagine sound as light, and trying to film in a house of mirrors. Everything is all jumbled up and it's hard to tell the real person from the reflections.

One easy solution to this is to get close to the mic. If your video camera has an external mic input, use it! Get a microphone by your lips and run the cord to the mic jack on the camera. If the camera doesn't have an external mic input  just hook a mic to your computer and speak into that while filming. Then when you edit the video, add a track for the extra audio you recorded on your computer, synchronize it with the audio from the camera (the echo-y audio), then delete the camera audio track, keeping the audio you recorded with your computer studio mic.

Use a Pop Screen

Mics are sensitive to wind. Certain consonant sounds in speech (like "P" for example) called plosives, cause a burst of wind into the mic if you're close to it. The result is a muddy, unpleasant rumbling or bumping sound in the audio. One way to reduce or (preferably) eliminate plosives is to put a screen between your lips and the microphone. You can buy these screens, called pop screens or pop filters, or you can make them yourself with some used nylon stockings stretched over a wire hanger you've bent into a circle or square-ish shape. For good measure, you can try to be aware of consonants that cause plosives and try to minimize the amount of air you spit into the mic.

Fix It In The Mix

Without spending a dime, you can edit your audio after you've recorded it using free software from the web. One such program is called Audacity, which is free and open-source software. You can use editing tools like equalization to reduce or eliminate the plosives that DID get recorded, as well as improve intelligibility, reduce noise, etc. Audacity can do amazing things. There are other audio editors out there too. But if money is an issue, it really is hard to beat Audacity for the price.

The above advice can be used by anyone, without having to be an engineer and without having to spend much, if any, money at all. If you want good sound quality...more professional audio, keeping just these 3 things in mind will improve your audio greatly.
If the tip about editing audio in Audacity sounded frightening and technical, don't worry. It's actually pretty easy.  Anyone can understand it. So go forth and do no more audio harm. It won't cost you much, if anything. Knowledge trumps gear.

About the Author

Ken is a musician, audio engineer and voice over actor.  Learn to record professional audio from home. Home Brew Audio will show you how to start with a $0-$5 budget, and then how to improve your studio for a few dollars at a time as your knowledge and confidence increase. If you would like to start doing home recording on computer, visit us here: PC Recording Studio

Audio Recording Site main page: audiorecordingsite.com

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